Are You Kidding Me? JoePa Got Up From That Hit?

In early June, I was at Beaver Stadium for the 2nd Annual Ladies' X's and O's Football Camp.  I spent the morning attending class and participating in drills on Beaver Stadium turf.  Then I had lunch, and heard Spider Caldwell talk about the history of Penn State jerseys and other funny facts about football equipment.

This luncheon was held on the second floor of Beaver Stadium.  Basically a carpeted floor over concrete.  On the way to a second class session on defensive strategy, my running shoe tread caught on the carpet and I tripped and fell straight forward.   I caught myself with my arms.  Head also hit the floor.  Not fun.



A good friend was next to me when I fell.  She had the presence of mind to caution me not to move until medical assistance arrived.   She asked for help.  Penn State's Emergency Medical System (EMS) crew was close by.  Including a doctor.

Within minutes my vital signs were taken.  My blood pressure, usually pretty normal or borderline low, was quite high due to the trauma of the pain in my arms.  The EMS took extreme care with my accident, treating me as if I had a neck injury, and deciding to board me and carry me on a stretcher out of Beaver Stadium and to an ambulance that would take me directly to Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Thus the rest of my ladies' football camp was spent in the emergency room, waiting for x-rays, then for the doctor to tell me to go home and see an orthopedic surgeon in the near future.

As for the EMS team, I appreciated their good work.  And to make a long story short, after a summer of recuperation from two fractured arms,  I'm okay.   A summer lost, but nonetheless it could have been much worse than it turned out to be.

Now, I'm not JoePa.  I'm probably not as physically fit as he is.  I just recently adopted exercise as a regular routine while JoePa has been exercising all his life.

But I am considerably younger than him.  He is 84, I just turned 60.  And I don't care what his physical condition is.  If you're 84 and an icon on campus and a legend in sports, and you get knocked down hard by a wide receiver, you DON'T just get up and try to shake it off.  You wait until the proper assistance arrives.

I have to ask,what were people who saw this happen thinking?  Where was the EMS crew?  Of course, JoePa can be pretty stubborn...maybe people told him to stay still and he ignored them.

Something's wrong here...but perhaps The Onion Sports Network,got it right when they published this satire :Penn State Players All Worried They're Going To Be The One Who Accidentally Kills Joe Paterno

I'm not usually a fan of the Onion, but this one was pretty funny.

If JoePa actually did get up without waiting for the proper medical assistance to arrive, that's not funny at all.